All of which had been followed by bloody Malachi greeting Remy as if they’d had dinner together only yesterday. Which wouldn’t have surprised Sinclair in the slightest. Malachi had never felt the necessity to explain himself to anyone.

  In the same way he hadn’t over knowing of the death of Remy’s parents.

  Except to now express his regrets to Remy.

  Not that Malachi would have felt any sadness himself at learning the Mitchells were dead. No, Malachi had expressed his condolences because he knew it was the correct, the polite, thing to do in the circumstances.

  Sinclair knew that wouldn’t be the case if they lost any member of the Kingston family: parents, brothers or cousin, and now sister and cousin-in-law. Malachi just had a finite amount of emotion, and it was all reserved for his close family. They all knew, in any emergency, that Mal was the one who would come to their rescue without explanation or argument.

  “What do you need from us?” Malachi now asked Remy economically.

  Proving that, as far as Malachi was concerned, the past five years of not seeing Remy might never have happened. That the Mitchells might be dead, and so no longer a cause for consideration, but that Mal still considered Remy, at least, to be a member of the inner circle of his family.

  Did Sinclair feel the same way?

  His first instinct, because his cock was still hard and throbbing, was still to tell Remy to just go away. To make it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her, the death of her parents, or the reason she was here now.

  His marriage to Cathy, and knowing of her deep love for her niece, told Sinclair his conscience couldn’t allow him to do that.

  But there was nothing that said he had to like it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Did you have to do that to him?”

  Remy turned to give Malachi a startled glance as she sat beside him in the black Jaguar sportscar he was driving to the Kingston Security offices on the other side of London. “Do what to whom?” she finally asked when, as usual, she could read nothing from Malachi’s expression.

  “You know exactly what and who I’m talking about, Remy,” he rebuked without taking his eyes off the road.

  Yes, she did.

  The two Kingston brothers, without so much as consulting her, had decided the “less public” place they needed to go to continue this conversation was the Kingston Security offices. Rather than turn down the idea out of hand, and because she really did need to talk to someone about what was happening in her life, Remy had opted to travel in Malachi’s car rather than in Sinclair’s vehicle.

  The same black SUV that had followed them out of the hotel car park. A glance in the side mirror showed Remy it was still behind them, Sinclair sitting grim-faced behind the wheel.

  “He’s too used to telling people what to do, so a little bit of not having everything his own way will do him good,” she dismissed.

  “In your opinion,” Malachi drawled.

  “Yes.”

  “Which means he’s now totally pissed at you, and consequently at me too, because you chose to travel with me and not him.”

  “Is that supposed to bother me?”

  He shrugged. “Believe me, the danger of incurring Sinclair’s displeasure has bothered people far tougher than you are.”

  Remy felt a cold shiver run the length of her spine. Malachi might be exactly the same man she remembered, but Sinclair certainly wasn’t. She didn’t know this Sinclair at all. He was cold and harsh and somehow…merciless.

  Or, as Malachi described him, dangerous.

  She gave an inward shiver. “I should never have approached any of you.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because I have no one else I can ask.” She hated the emotional quiver she could hear in her voice and the humiliated tears burning her eyes.

  Oh, she had friends, even had her share of boyfriends over the years, but none of those casual friendships or ex-boyfriends were what she needed right now.

  “Ask what?”

  “For help,” she revealed, her head down so that the dark swath of her hair fell forward to cover the tears now falling silently down her cheeks.

  “Remy, you can tell me anything,” Malachi encouraged. “You know I don’t judge.”

  She drew in a ragged breath. “There’s nothing for you to judge.”

  “You aren’t pregnant?”

  “No!” she answered vehemently, impatiently wiping away the tears as she turned in her seat to glare at him. “Malachi, why on earth would you even think something like that?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve heard that an unexpected pregnancy is something that can upset some ladies, and right now, you seem very upset.”

  “I’m sure that in some cases, it upsets the men too,” she said dryly.

  “Exactly.”

  Remy drew in a controlling breath, knowing that Malachi was just being himself rather than deliberately annoying. “Even if that were true, why would I want to talk to Sinclair about it?”

  “Possibly because you’ve been in love with him since you were thirteen years old.”

  She drew back with a gasp. Not because it wasn’t the truth, but because she knew by Malachi’s tone that he was stating it as an accepted fact rather than a recent revelation.

  “Sinclair called it an infatuation,” she defended.

  Malachi shrugged. “Then he isn’t looking hard enough.”

  How could Remy not have fallen in love with Sinclair when, even though he was married to her aunt, he was everything she could ever want in a man? Being eighteen years older than her gave him a sophistication that was attractive in its own right, but then he’d also been warm, charming, breathtakingly handsome, and he had a wicked sense of humor.

  It was those same qualities she’d looked for in other men during the years since she’d last seen Sinclair, but found them all lacking.

  Only to now learn that the Sinclair she’d met today was no longer the man she’d loved and admired for so many years.

  “I haven’t even seen Sinclair since Cathy’s funeral five years ago,” she now defended.

  Although the fact Malachi had even thought she might be pregnant with Sinclair’s child was enough to send heat deep into her core.

  Despite being married for fourteen years, Cathy and Sinclair hadn’t had any children of their own. Remy had no idea if that was by choice or because one of them wasn’t capable of conceiving.

  Malachi glanced at her. “Let me guess, that was Sinclair’s decision?”

  “Yes!”

  “Bet that hurt.”

  “Far more than it should have,” she acknowledged huskily.

  At first, she’d been devastated when it became obvious after Cathy’s funeral that Sinclair was no longer a presence in her own life or her parents’.

  Hurtful, but perfectly understandable, her mother had reasoned once she realized how deeply Remy felt Sinclair’s absence. They were, her mother explained, a reminder of all that Sinclair had lost. Give him time, her mother had advised, and then hopefully, they would see him again.

  They hadn’t.

  Not once in five years.

  “So, not here to tell Sinclair you’re pregnant, then,” Malachi mused.

  She huffed. “No. Because I really am over my infatuation for him.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Positive.” Love, like living plants, needed warmth and care to survive. Something Sinclair’s deliberate absence from her life certainly hadn’t given her.

  Oh, she still loved the Sinclair she’d known in the past. But the man he had become was a complete enigma to her, the bleakness of his gaze seeming to swirl with secrets she couldn’t even begin to guess.

  She glanced out the window at their surroundings. “Would you mind pulling the car over and letting me out?”

  “Yes.”

  She blinked. “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I’d mind,” Malachi stated evenly.

  “It wasn’t really a request!”

  “Then you shouldn’t have made it one. In any case, we’re here now.” He turned the Jaguar off the main road into the entrance to an underground car park.

  He fed his pass card into the machine and waited for the steel door to lift seconds later before removing the card and driving forward. The lights in the car park flickered on to illuminate the huge private parking space.

  Those lights overhead made it easy for Remy to see the coldness of Sinclair’s expression as he parked the SUV beside the Jaguar before opening the door and stepping out of the vehicle.

  A coldness that clearly told her he was still angry with her for choosing to travel in Malachi’s car rather than with him.

  Sinclair was furious.

  A blazing, hot, all-consuming fury he hadn’t been able to dispel during the drive here.

  The sort of strong emotion he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for the past five years.

  During that time the only emotions he’d allowed himself was cold, calculated vengeance. He had dismissed any of the softer emotions that might weaken his resolve to seek out justice for the weak or ignored.

  A single meeting with Remy Mitchell, and the reminder she was of the past, and all Sinclair’s carefully built defenses had started to crumble into dust around him.

  That was a lie, he instantly chided himself.

  Yes, his emotions felt raw and exposed. But that feeling of being wrong-footed and out of control had nothing to do with Remy bringing back reminders of the past, and everything to do with the unwanted desire that had so unexpectedly ripped through him just from speaking and being close to this totally grown-up Remy.

  She was stunningly beautiful to look at.

  Huskily sexy to listen to.

  She moved and spoke with a self-confidence she hadn’t possessed when he’d known her all those years ago.

  Those lovely blue eyes are also now red and her cheeks wet from where she’s obviously been crying.

  Which pissed Sinclair off all over again. Remy had been defensive with him, challenging even, but it seemed she felt comfortable enough with Malachi to have allowed him to see her cry.

  Perhaps that was because Sinclair was the reason she was upset? He’d certainly made it obvious he was less than pleased to see her again.

  He would definitely be having words with Casper later on today, for his brother’s part in keeping the knowledge of the Mitchells’ deaths from him. If Sinclair had known, he might not have been so surprised, and emotionally unbalanced, at seeing Remy again.

  Who was he kidding? Nothing could have prepared him for seeing and being with this grown-up Remy.

  “This way,” Sinclair rasped as, without waiting to see if Remy and Malachi followed him, he walked over to the private elevator that would take them up to the top floor of the Kingston Security building where the executive offices were situated.

  He rarely came here anymore, preferring to work from home. Or in his ivory tower, as his brothers had renamed his suite of rooms in one of the turrets of their sprawling family home on the Kingston estate.

  After hunting down and then dealing with the men who had kidnapped and killed Cathy, Sinclair had felt compelled to seek that same justice for other people and families in the same position. He’d initially been shocked by the hurt one human being could inflict upon another, but over time, out of sheer self-preservation, that shock had turned to a steely resolve.

  The same steeliness Sinclair now wrapped about himself as he barely glanced at Remy as she followed him into the elevator, that backpack once again thrown over her shoulder.

  “You, Casper, and I, will be having a conversation later,” he warned Malachi as his brother stepped in behind Remy.

  “Fine,” Mal dismissed, obviously not in the least concerned by the threat.

  Probably because both of Sinclair’s brothers were aware he hadn’t shown this much outward emotion, good or bad, for fucking years. Mal, at least, was enjoying himself far too much over that fact.

  Except, Sinclair acknowledged self-derisively, there hadn’t been any fucking in the last five years either, because he hadn’t felt even a stirring of physical desire during that time.

  Until today, when he’d looked at the fully adult Remy Mitchell, breathed in her unique perfume of citrus and pine, and felt the quiver of awareness down the length of his spine that caused his cock to harden as he listened to her speak.

  Damn it, his dick was still half hard inside his trousers.

  A situation not helped by being shut in the small confines of an elevator with her and that unique, and arousing scent of desirable woman.

  A temptation Malachi gave no indication of being aware of. Instead, his brother remained his usual calm self as he chose to read information, probably emails, off his cell phone rather than become entangled in the tense silence between Sinclair and Remy.

  Sinclair’s frustration with the situation increased once the elevator had reached the top floor and the doors opened to allow them all to step out into the silent and carpeted hallway of the executive offices.

  He’d forgotten, when they decided to come to Kingston Security, that he no longer kept an office in the building. He’d seen no reason to when he was never here.

  He gave Malachi a pointed glance, which his brother initially—predictably—failed to understand until Sinclair nodded pointedly down the corridor to where his office had once been, but was no more.

  Malachi’s brow cleared. “This way.” He stepped in front of Remy to lead the way to where his own office was halfway down the hallway.

  It was a distance of possibly twenty yards, but it seemed much farther than that as it became Sinclair’s own personal level of hell after he’d stepped back to allow Remy to precede him.

  He tried to keep his gaze averted, he really did, but the sexy sway of her hips was hypnotic, the denim of her jeans fitting snugly to the curve of her arse and those long and graceful legs.

  Years of sexual disinterest, without a physical response of any kind to any woman, and now his rebellious libido chose to reawaken at the sight, sound, and smell, of the one woman Sinclair really didn’t want to look at in that way but now couldn’t seem to turn away from.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Remy felt less that comfortable once she was seated in the chair in front of Malachi’s desk, her backpack sitting on the floor beside her.

  Not because Malachi was seated opposite her, and obviously prepared to wait patiently all day for her to start talking if he had to.

  No, Remy’s feeling of unrest were because she was totally aware of the man standing completely still and leaning against the wall slightly to the right of her. Not with the same innate calmness as his brother did. Instead, Sinclair’s arms were folded across his wide chest, the brooding impatience rolling off him in waves.

  Remy refused to look at him as she took a few moments to gather her thoughts by looking at her surroundings.

  The offices she’d glanced into as she followed Malachi down the hallway were spacious and modern. This room, perhaps because it was Malachi’s, was sparsely but well furnished, with a green carpet, light oak desk, dark green leather chairs, and a small private bar and fridge at the back of the room. The view out of the huge windows behind Malachi was of the Thames and, more specifically, the London Eye.

  Remy knew exactly how expensive a location this was.

  One that the Kingston family could easily afford when they all, including the parents who had now retired to Florida, had individual as well as family wealth.

  Remy’s Aunt Cathy had often taken her for a swim in the indoor pool on the Kingston estate. Or, as Cathy’s only family, Remy and her parents were all invited to join in the Kingston family picnics, or to a meal or party in the main house.

  But, as a child, Remy couldn’t say she’d ever given too much thought to the opulence of the estate, with its helipad, private swimming pool, tennis courts, croquet lawn, and gym. There was even a small hospital wing in what had years ago been the armory.

  The Kingston Security offices reflected the same understated wealth as the large family estate.

  Remy’s father had been a surgeon, with both a private and NHS patient list. Her mother had been a librarian. Admittedly, their home had been a large detached house in the London suburbs, with an acre of garden, but even so, the high cost of living there had meant there wasn’t any spare cash left sloshing around.

  Her parents had paid Remy’s university fees and for her to stay in Halls of Residence, but she’d taken a part-time job in a coffee shop to pay for her living expenses. Part of those expenses had been the numerous books she’d needed for her physics degree course, but luckily, her mother had been able to acquire most of those. Even so, a part-time job and the discount on books hadn’t been enough to support Remy through university, and she’d still needed to take out a student loan she was slowly paying back each month.

  She knew that all the Kingston men, the six brothers and their cousin, Adam, had university degrees, along with Malachi’s second degree, a master’s’ in engineering. The Kingston wealth meant that none of the men had needed to accrue debts or find a job—or two, as some of Remy’s friends had—to support themselves while they were finishing their education. Kingston Security was also one of the world’s leading security firms.

  Thinking now of those differences in their backgrounds and all those years without seeing or hearing from a single member of the Kingston family was enough for Remy to realize she should never have approached Sinclair at the hotel today. That she should have dealt with the problem herself, whatever it turned out to be, and not involved any of the Kingston family.

  Something she knew, from Sinclair’s impatient stillness, along with Malachi’s calmer one, was no longer an option. Because these two men wouldn’t be allowing her to leave here today until they knew the reason she’d taken such extreme measures to speak with Sinclair.

  Unless…

  She turned to give Sinclair a challenging look. “You didn’t like my father.”